Under the USAID Global Land Tenure II (GLT2) Lesson Learned: Property Rights and Natural Resource Management Task Orders, ARD has developed an impact assessment tool. This tool was crafted to assist USAID missions assess impact of land tenure and property rights (LTPR) interventions and derive important lessons that can inform future programming.
Following a USAID review and subsequent revision of the Draft Impact Assessment Tool, USAID/Washington and ARD sought to field test the Tool and reached out to various mission candidates. USAID/Ecuador responded by requesting a rapid impact assessment of the Conservation in Areas Managed by Indigenous Groups Project (CAIMAN by its Spanish acronym) and the Southern Border Integration Program (PSUR).
The purpose of the assessment, therefore, encompassed two distinct objectives: one calling for the impact assessment of the USAID/Ecuador projects and the other involving the pilot testing and appraisal of ARD’s LTPR Impact Assessment Tool.
With respect to the former, the USAID/Ecuador assessment called for an analysis of (a) the extent to which higher order CAIMAN and PSUR objectives were met, (b) expected and unexpected outcomes of CAIMAN and PSUR interventions, (c) efficacy of project approaches for achieving a sustainable impact, and (d) lessons learned. The scope of the assessment centered upon CAIMAN efforts to strengthen territorial rights of the Cofán Nationality and PSUR support to enhance territorial rights of the Shuar Nationality. The findings and conclusions of this assessment are included in a separate report.
In regards the latter objective, and the focus of this report, the field-test team was required to identify the successes and challenges confronted in implementing the LTPR Impact Assessment Tool and make recommendations for its improvement.